Secret Dead Men

by Duane Swierczynski

  My God—was Amy real?

  For once, I wished I had the Ghost Fieldman here to explain things to me. But of course, he was probably the one who helped build all of this. He and Brad Larsen, in secret alliance to find the killers themselves, letting me poke around in the dark on my own. Brad Larsen was his mission; not me. I felt like a man who’s been declared obsolete. All this time I assumed myself to be special, gifted, and it turns out I’m just another schlump spinning his wheels day after day, thinking he’s making a difference, but not doing a damn thing worthwhile to anyone. Utterly disposable. A man you could flush down a toilet without an ounce of pity. A nothing man. A dead man.

  With nothing better to do, I looked around at the scenery. It was nice here. The grass, the trees, the sloping gravel walk up to the house. Maybe this is where I should stay—hole myself up in a literal ghost house forever. Let the real men handle the tough work. Sit and read and listen to the Beatles albums I remembered and relax.

  I went to the front door and walked inside. The interior was how I remembered it—minus the blood and cops milling about, mind you. Nice, respectable piece of property. There was a portable radio on a small card table. “The Air That I Breathe” was playing…. No cigarettes, no light, no sleep, no sound….

  There was a knock at the door behind me.

  I spun my head to look at it, and when I turned back to the room I saw Brad Larsen, sitting at a desk, reading something out of a thick textbook. I was about to call out to him, but I turned my attention to the door and opened it, not thinking. Halfway open, it occurred to me this was probably a bad idea.

  And it was. Ray Loogan’s eyebrows lifted, and then there was an explosion that blew out my eardrums, and the next thing I knew, my throat had exploded. I inhaled. It was like drinking flaming oil. My mouth and lungs burned. I couldn’t catch my breath. I heard a man screaming, furniture breaking. I could feel the ground shake beneath my head with every stomp and kick.

  …peace came upon and it leaves me weak…

  I heard glasses rattling, grunting noises.

  After a while, I couldn’t hear anything.

  Then a gunshot.

  Then nothing.

  Of course, I knew what was happening to me. I was reliving Alison Larsen’s death, which had been locked away deep within her mind. But why? If Brad was trying to bring back his dead wife through Amy, why keep the painful memories at all? And why was this taking so long?

  I knew the answer to that one, too. The human soul doesn’t always depart its body right away. If it has a reason to, it can hang around for a day, maybe even longer. And Alison had plenty of reason to hang around.

  Thus, I hung around in Alison Larsen’s rapidly-cooling corpse. I watched a woman step over my body, but I couldn’t make out a face. Then I watched the same woman drag the man who’d shot me out of the house. They were both careful to avoid my body. I listened to the radio for longer than I cared to, though I couldn’t distinguish any of the songs, or the announcements, or advertisements. Every song, in fact, sounded like the Hollies’ “The Air That I Breathe.” The rest was meaningless garbage. I sensed the sun setting and darkness filling the corners of the house. Somewhere deep in my mind there was a sense of urgency, a need to escape this situation and return to my own life … whoever I was … and back on the case. Whatever that was. The dark hours rolled by. My soul hung on to the corpse, like a piece of wet tissue paper on a shoe.

  Then, light again. A new morning, and warmth—slight warmth, not nearly the degree I was used to. Then, a child’s face. At first, he looked shocked; then amused, the corners of his mouth curling up, eyes alive with mischief. He ran away. About a half-hour later, he returned with a few of his buddies. The Secret Dead Woman Club. They started by unbuttoning my blouse, already dried and sticky with blood. They stared at my breasts, and touched my nipples with short, grubby fingers.

  I don’t wish to recount the details of their petty experiments and probings. This record is not meant to degrade the memory of Alison Larsen. Suffice to say, they left no taboo untried. I wish I could have protected Alison…

  The thought reminded me: I was not Alison Larsen. I was trapped in her memories. I was … who was I? No names would come. I didn’t remember who I was, or much of my purpose here. All I knew was that I was Not Alison.

  Eventually, the tortures stopped—the children chased away by a postal worker. Presumably, he called the proper authorities, for not twenty minutes later my dead body was visited by Sheriff Danny Alford. But even now, I felt myself slipping further away from my body, as if it had gone through its required mourning and was now ready to travel to the afterlife, wherever that may be. I saw more police arrive, dimly, and men in suits and photographers and eventually, a white sheet. I saw nothing, and patiently awaited whatever lay ahead. At least it would be an educational experience. Then something whipped the sheet away from my face.

  And everything stopped.

  Not that I was in Heaven or Hell—I mean the scene froze, with my body on a gurney being ferried by two EMTs, who looked like department store mannequins. No tree branches moved, not a blade of grass. No wind. But no, something was moving. A man. He stepped through the static lawn towards me, smiling. I knew I recognized his face, but I couldn’t place him immediately.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be here sooner,” he said, “but there are rules about these kinds of things.”

  “Who are you?” I heard myself say. But I hadn’t said anything.

  “I’m a friend of your husband, Ms. Larsen. I’m here to take you away from all of this.”

  “Is he with you?!” I gasped, involuntarily.

  “Yes, he is. And he’ll be with you soon. But you need to speed someplace and rest for a while. You won’t feel any pain anymore. No loss. Nothing but happiness and comfort. I promise.”

  “Take me to Brad,” I said.

  The man walked over to me and touched my cold forehead. Then he placed a weird-looking machine that looked like a crucifix over me and I heard an electric snap and everything dissolved like Alka-Selzer in a tumbler of water and—

  “I am not going to live inside that,” I said.

  It was an indeterminate amount of time later. The man had guided me through entire worlds of darkness and blue lightning—kind of a speeded-up version of some of the freakier scenes in 2001: A Space Odyssey—to a room that looked like a college laboratory. On the table rested a machine vaguely resembling a human. If humans had long, wiry tentacles popping out of every available orifice.

  The man shook his head. “You must. Otherwise, your soul is unprotected.”

  “Not that … thing.”

  “The simulacrum is not complete, Alison. Not without you inside it. Then it comes to life, and becomes fully human. And I mean that. Human. Without a soul, a body is only meat. Without you, this machine is nothing but engineered tissue.”

  I started to cry, without meaning to.

  The man placed his hand on the area of space that would have been my back. “It’s the only way,” he said, soothingly. “This is the way to your husband.”

  I sniffled, then agreed to it all.

  The past was erased. I had a new life now. My name was Amy Langtree, and I was an art student who lived in a studio at 1530 Spruce Street and everything was great. I met a cute guy who lived a couple of floors below me, and I’m hoping he’ll ask me out.

  Wait—no I’m not. I’m Not Alison. I mean, I’m me. Del Farmer Me. Del Farmer, Soul Collector.

  And with that realization, I found myself in my own apartment again. At least, in the brain simulation of my apartment.

  Goddamn, how long was I buried in that gruesome memory? A couple of days, at least. It all came flooding back to me at once—J.P. Balfoures, the murder investigation, the Susannah/Lana thing, the Brad/Ghost of Fieldman/toilet thing….

  Finally, the story was becoming clear. The being who had rescued Alison’s soul and put her in the robot was the Ghost of Fieldman. I recognized him now.
How did he pull it off? Beats me. I wasn’t quite sure how he managed to rip my own consciousness from its body and throw it into the porcelain prison of a toilet, either. Fieldman always said he “existed out of time,” and I suppose that loosely translates into: “I’m always going to be two steps ahead of you.”

  Alison’s soul—her memories, her emotions, her quirks—were stored inside this body. This “simulacrum,” as Fieldman had described it. She had always looked—and felt—so damn real. Weren’t robots supposed to be made of cold metal and beeping or something? But she wasn’t. Not as far as I could tell.

  “You’re home?” I heard a voice ask. Amy was standing behind me. Or at least, the visual representation of her soul was standing behind me. Actually, we were two souls, standing inside a mental replication of my apartment.

  “Yes, I am. I have a favor to ask.”

  She walked over to the couch, looking for the cat. “Psss-wsss…. Here, kitty.” She turned her head back to me. “Sure. What is it?”

  “Just hang out here, and wait for me to call. I have something to take care of.”

  “No problem. Where’s the furball?”

  Uh-oh. The furball’s soul wasn’t currently absorbed in this simulation. “I’m sure he’s just hiding,” I said.

  “Not many places to hide,” Amy said.

  “Be right back.” I hope she didn’t start digging around too much. I walked out the door of the apartment. It worked just like the front doors in the Brain Hotel lobby.

  It brought me back to reality.

  I opened our eyes. I had to move if I was ever going to get my physical body back. I felt inside her pocket for my apartment key and instead found a piece of paper. A note. From “Del Farmer.”

  Amy—

  I’m sorry about what happened. I want to make this work. I know we can. Please stop down later. I’ll be home around 9:00. I’ve left this key for you to let yourself in. Make yourself at home.

  I left a present for you on my writing desk.

  All my love,

  Del

  P.S. After you see the present, turn this page over.

  “All my love?” Christ, I would never write something like that. I always signed correspondence with a “sincerely,” or perhaps “best,” if I knew the recipient well. Even with the infrequent love interests I’d had I would sign “yours.” And that was pushing it.

  I checked Amy’s watch. 6:40 p.m. My God, it must be Friday already, I thought. I must have been a toilet for over … 20 hours? If so, this meant the infamous party—the “Best of Philly,” where Susannah would be all alone, needing Paul’s protection—started in twenty minutes. And if my hunch was correct, it wouldn’t be Paul showing up to take care of her. It would be Brad Larsen, showing up to really take care of her. And I had to stop him before he scotched my entire investigation.

  I flipped the note over. On the back was nothing but an address:

  473 Winding Way, Merion PA.

  I didn’t recognize the address—I wasn’t even sure if it was close to the city. Merion? Could be a small hamlet outside of Pittsburgh. What was Amy/Alison supposed to do with it?

  The answer was sitting across the room, my desk, in the form of a present.

  I walked over to the record player on my desk. It had a silver bow and a yellow note attached to it: Play Me. There was a 45 record on the platter. The label had been ripped off. I lifted the arm and dropped the needle into the groove. A familiar guitar note wailed, and rhythm guitars kicked in.

  If I could make a wish … I think I’d pass…

  Oh God. Not that song.

  Can’t think of anything I need…

  I could feel the tears forming in my/Alison’s eyes, and our body starting to tremble. She was remembering. Triggered by the Hollies’ “The Air That I Breathe.” The song she died to. The song that would blast open all the doors in her psyche. In a split second, I relived every torment. And so did Amy. After all, songs pinned down times and places like nothing else.

  Bodily control was jerked away from me, and I was back in the Brain simulation of my apartment. (It was kind of like the two different viewpoints you get when you shut one eye, then the other. Subtle, but a shift nonetheless.) I felt us moving toward a mirror. She glared into it, hair in her face, cheeks wet. “Who am I?”

  I formed a mental mike and spoke to her. It’s me, Del. I’m here to help you Am … Alison.

  “I remember,” she said.

  I know you do.

  “I remember everything.”

  Yes, I understand.

  “I want my husband back.”

  Okay, Alison. Let’s go get him.

  Twenty-Three

  The Spirits of ‘76

  Finding the party wasn’t tough. The Philadelphia Art Museum is one of the most obvious landmarks in the world. Somebody had decided to put it right at the end of a parkway that cut a diagonal right across the ordinarily precise grid that was Center City. (Just to shake things up, one presumes.) And that night, in case you were confused, helpful folks in tuxedoes were only too glad to point you in the right direction. A year later, a movie about a scrappy boxer from the slums would seal the Museum’s fate, and countless tourists would be compelled to run up this marble torture mountain.

  The hardest part was walking in two-inch heels. It was the dressiest thing Alison had in her closet, and they made those damned Museum steps an absolute horror. It was the goddamned Mount Everest of Culture. Do people love art this much? At the top of the 42 million steps, another kid in a tux told us the entrance for the party was around back. I asked Alison if she was okay with taking over her body for a while—after all, she had more experience with these things. She agreed.

  We walked around the huge piece of land, and up a sloped driveway to the back, which was littered with Cadillacs dropping people off. At the door, a pimply kid in an ruffled tux shirt three sizes too big asked us for our ticket. Alison started to stammer, so I offered to take over again. We were a spiritual tag team.

  “We’re on the list,” I said.

  “We?” he repeated.

  Whoops. “I mean, I’m on the list. With my guest.”

  The kid nodded and checked his list—a tattered mimeograph. Then he frowned and looked back at us. “Uh, what’s your name?”

  “Guest of Richard Gard.”

  It took him a full five minutes to find the Gs. “Right. Gard. He’s already inside. With a guest.”

  “I’m his mistress,” I said, and pushed my way past him.

  “Wait!” he called after me. “You forgot your sticker!”

  “Stick it up your ass,” I shouted back, which earned me strange looks from some well-dressed bystanders. I smiled coquettishly and kept walking. It was fun being a woman.

  I walked down a hallway and into the main hall, the heart of the party. This wasn’t your usual swanky affair. The room looked more like a carnival, with booths and tables set along the perimeter of the hall, stocked with beef and booze and deserts and whatever else the editors of the city magazine had deemed “the best.” Smelled like a scam to me. Taste was a highly subjective thing. Frankly, this seemed like a lame excuse to stock a room full of advertisers and have them cater the thing for free. Including, no doubt, the mini Big Band wailing a jazzed-up version of “Turn the Beat Around” over in the corner of the museum.

  I nabbed a cup of beer and a cracker full of some kind of seafood and started the search for my body.

  Before long, I found it. Brad and our client were standing near a booth sponsored by Wyborowa Vodka, which was giving away free samples in tiny cups. It looked as if Brad had told a joke, because Susannah was laughing and brushing her brown hair back over her ears. Clearly, he hadn’t told her yet. I doubt her reaction to “By the way, you’re the bitch who knifed me” would be laughter. What was he waiting for?

  I passed a silver punch bowl and caught my reflection, which answered my own question. Of course. He’s waiting for me. The Alison me.

  No, Brad
wasn’t expecting his bride-in-a-robot to show up here, now. He’d intended her to show up much later in the evening, around 9:30, say, at 473 Winding Way in Merion. For whatever reason.

  It was time to liven this party up.

  “Hi there, Pauly boy,” I said. Because in this context, it was his name. Paul After. Protector of innocents. Killer of men. “Long time, no see. Who’s the tramp?”

  I watched Susannah’s eyebrows lift in confusion, then suddenly plummet in contempt. “Paul…?” she asked.

  The color drained from Brad/Paul’s face. I could practically smell the smoke burning in his fevered brain. Was he trying to figure out how his dead wife showed up here, ahead of schedule? Or was he trying to calculate a way out of this without ruining his master plan?

  Either way, it didn’t matter. I used the opportunity to launch myself out of Amy/Alison’s body, right into his eyes, and back into my own body.

  To be honest, I wasn’t sure I could do something like that. It’d always been the opposite: sucking somebody else in—absorption, not active possession. The thing seemed to work both ways, however. I saw the world in front of me enlarge, as if I were moving my head closer and closer to a photograph. Paul’s eyes grew as immense as national monuments, and I dove right in.

  It’s hard to describe what happened next in physical terms. Kind of like tackling somebody to the ground, only using your head. In other words, it hurt like the dickens.

  Next thing I knew, Brad and I were rolling around on the Brain Hotel lobby floor. I was back. Yes, praise the Lord, I was home. I lifted myself up to my knees. It was time to reassume command of this vessel, damn it.

  Brad threw a fist into my gut.